July 24, 2009

He’s gone from bad to…

So, I’m wondering when putting the word “devilsaur” into the title of smooshy love songs is going to get old, and I’m starting to think … maybe … never.

Three Times a Devilsaur … Waiting for a Devilsaur like you … When you love a Devilsaur … My baby loves devilsaur

Okay, I’m stopping now.

*twitch*

In-keeping with the half-arsed Things I Love About WoW theme I’ve recently imposed upon myself, the part of this post not dedicated to the rest of the blogsphere is dedicated to my favourite NPC in the whole of the game. Because of the sheer quantity of quests and characters populating Azeroth, it’s very easy to see everyone you encounter as little more than a quest dispenser, especially if said quest is “Hello [class], I require 10 monkey toenails because … I do. And I can’t get them myself because … I can’t. I will give you this random hat and 25 copper pieces if you bring me 10 monkey toenails. For the Horde!”

This isn’t a criticism. I have nothing against giving a bunch of monkeys a pedicure. With my axe. As I’ve said before, you tend to know what you’re getting with WoW and too many fiddly quests (why hello Northrend, long time no see, I haven’t complained about you for a while) are exhausting and annoying. You know the type I mean: “Go to the Cave of Songs on the other side of the map and use this Arcane Harmonisation Device on 35 Crystallized Pillars until it is properly attuned. Then use it with the filled Bong of Ysandril to summon Raksaw The Suicidal. Take Raksaw with you to the glen south of the river and, with his aid, kill the creatures you find there and bring me 10 of their toenails as proof of the deed. I will give you this random hat and 25 copper pieces as a reward. If you should happen to lose Raksaw The Suicidal, return to me and I will give a new Bong of Ysandril, which you can refill at the Smoky Chasm.”

ARGH! ARGH! A world of ARGH. Lend me that teaspoon, for I must gouge out my eyes in pure frustration.

Okay, I’ve veered as wildly off track with this blog post as if I had my epic flyer stuck on auto-run. The point I was trying to make is this: because Azeroth is fairly and comfortably generic a lot of the time (and I have no problem with that), characters who are well-written, well-characterised, or just a tad more imaginative than usual really make an impression.

And putting aside epic lore figures like Thrall, my favourite character in WoW is … well … ahem .. I think it behoves the depth of my passion and the nature of his, err, nature to express myself in form worthy of him.

My dearest Jeremiah, just a note to say:
You’re my favourite zombie in all of Azeroth.
My adoration for you suffers no decay
Despite the massive fuss about the Lich King’s wrath.
The Jeremiah Blues are such a tragic tale,
Rubbish loot aside, it never fails to move me,
Though fools deride its lack of epic Wrathgate scale.
Hey, you should be the star of the Warcraft movie!
I’ll always buy a cockroach, just to win your smile,
And keep it by my side, and other pets decline,
Even though it really does nothing for my style.
Unlike the fickle masses who flock at Valentine.
On the morning after, you’ve no need to sweat it
Whatever Blizzard claim, I never will regret it.

(Not quite an Alexandrine because I couldn’t be arsed to fiddle with the weird stresses required but in hexamater rather than pentameter because I think poetry to zombies ought to be slow and shambling, err “that like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along” in fact!).

So, who’s your favourite NPC, and why? Do you even have one or am I just crazy? Poetry on the subject entirely optional.

And, finally, because it is Friday. Some of my favourite links of the week.

This was technically last week, but over at Shadow Word: Blog, there’s a great post (and accompanying discussion) on Abi’s Top 5 Most Hated Quests. It should provide some kind of cosmic balance for the peace, love and rainbows flying out of this blog at the moment. Also it’s really funny. My favourite line: “Who knew that not every Hillsbrad Farmer had a skull?” Hehe!

Earlier in the week, Spinks was thinking about the anti-social consequences of adventuring in pairs and new possible directions for duo-themed content in MMOs, which led to a fascinating post over at Wild Growth about her own experiences of playing WoW with an established group. Both posts have really made me think about how I’ve been playing the game lately, and whether clinging to M’Pocket Tank and Cowfriend is making me harmfully disenganged.

And, finally, not a specific link but I’ve recently discovered Nim (I know, I know, there I was, blogging in a hole in the ground again). Her blog is called A Shaman’s Journey but, in my head, I think of it as Letters to Azeroth. Nim’s WoW exploits are primarily related through letters to, well, everything. The zeppelin, her shield, herself. It’s charming and whimsical and never fails to brighten my day.

And, finally, you’ll have to forgive me but I’m going to go incredibly smooshy for a moment. The sonnet must have gone to my head. I can’t really link here either but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for the amazing comments. When I first started this blog (to let off steam after a bad PUG) I didn’t actually give much thought to the idea that people might, y’know, read it, especially given the fact that I don’t exactly write about anything useful or profound, and wouldn’t recognise a strategy if it trounced me at Risk. But I’m so grateful and delighted that, apparently, people do. Thank you so much for your time, and your wonderful, wonderful comments. You make writing this blog an absolute pleasure, and you enrich my game no end.

Okay, that’s enough of that. I have to go now and be rude to a stranger. Kick a murloc. Or something.

Like this:

Related

Go open a door for someone, but attempt to look like your going to steal something from them for doing so :p

Poetry aside, I think my favourite NPC is, or rather has to be, Stranglethorns Mr Hemet Nesigwary Jr. along with his trusty chums I guess.

Not just for the good sport, or progressivly going after greater game and then finding some big ass tiger/dino and stealing a body part from its slightly warm dead body.

No my most favourite part with dealing with this chap is the book. The whole idea of most of the “humanoids” in the area having scraps of a book, and then stealing them, making an actually book, never seem to get boring for me. I love rolling thorugh stranglethorn, killing pirates (im a ninja rogue after all) stealthing upto goblins and dropping them the small distance they have to the floor.

And all this time grabbing book pages and talking to Hemet about it just seems to me to be what a lot of players miss out on. I often go fishing with his group as well.

Early on the downside was there were some pants alliance around often, but now im silly high level, they wave and run away, before murder glints in my eyes.

Ninja > Pirate imo :p

One day i’ll attempt the admiral hat quest, jsut so I can go murder some more pirates again to get booty bay back on my side.

p.s. all my guildies have a full copy of the book of stanglethorn, seems I was quite busy collecting pages that I had left so many pags in the bank everyone could jsut pick it up. They are missing out :p

I’ll hold upon a door for someone, give them a quirky, Northern “ayup” and THEN steal something, thus cementing their southern cynicism and leaving them with a deep sense of loss and betrayal.

Nesingwary is awesome – you must roll up that dorf hunter and come emunulate his lifestyle with us. I think we’re all mid teens at the moment, levelling being a slow and dithersome process when all you do is go places and shoot things, although that’s a major part of the appeal. I have this crazy idea of trying to run an instance at level with 4-5 hunters (although it’d have to be an instance with lots of animals in it, zombie piggies maybe?) Because nothing could go wrong with that plan!

I think the Green Hills of Stranglethorn quest annoys a lot of people because it’s huge and random and having your bags stuffed full with random pages of some dwarf’s manuscript is not exactly useful … but I’ve always like it too. It’s just so absurd, running around STV, slaughtering animals and trying to re-assemble the book (it’s quite a fun read as well, in a terribly paradic way).

I’m afraid I have to disagree, good Sir. Pirate > ninja.

But actually, now I think about it, before it comes to boomsticks at dawn over the vexed question of pirates v. ninjas, you really should make a dorf hunter and join the club. There’s is Deviate Delight in the guild bank. Deviate delight, fish, kodo trophies and guns. So you can be a dorf hunter ninja if you so desire. A dorf hunter ninja with a 10 pound fish. You know you want to.

“Go steal 15 bags of gold from the Swisher Sweet Pirates over at the Bay o’ the Lost and bring them back to me, their rightful owner! In return I shall give you your choice of this sweet wand -or- 3 mana potions!”

“But.. I’m a Rogue”

Why can’t we just steal the gold and.. you know.. keep it?

Then there are the extremely disgusting quests..

..like packing around 100 Infected Goose Nipples, some Orc’s severed left foot, a Sacrificial Pitchfork of the Contagious Leper and 3 vials of Wood Elf Spit. What if you fell!? Can you imagine all of that stuff mixing up in your pack with your Pumpernickle Spice Loaf and your mana potions?

Let’s not forget about the FedEx quests. Why can’t NPCs just use the mail system? It takes just as long as they wouldn’t have to pay more than 30 copper or so. They could stop handing out those awesome hats you talked about and save a small fortune.

I always assumed the trolls weren’t the ones bottling the sweat, that for some godawful reason, *I* was going up to this dead troll body and collecting the sweat in a tiny bottle because some vendor somewhere told me it was worth something.

But then, I stopped asking questions about the random things mobs drop around the time that I picked up a rotting bear carcass from a bear I had just killed, and then proceeded to skin the corpse I had left on the ground. Trying to figure out why a bear would be carrying around the rotting corpse of another bear (let alone where it was hiding it) just makes my brain hurt.

Your complaint about Northrend quests being too fiddly is interesting, as something’s been bugging me about them lately and I wasn’t sure what it is. Maybe that’s it. The thing is, I really enjoyed all the quests in Howling Fjord when I did them for the first time. I kept thinking: “Wow, they really went out of their way to avoid the boring ‘kill x of y’ quests this time!” But when it comes to doing them again on an alt… I balk, and I’m not sure why. Never mind that I could do Stranglethorn Vale over and over again. Or that I *have done* all of Hellfire Peninsula at least half a dozen times and still like it.

As for favourite NPCs – I’ve been Horde for a while now, but I still remember Oralius from the Burning Steppes being pretty epic. :)

Going out their way to “avoid the boring kill X of Y quests” was pretty much exactly what ruined Northrend for me, even the first time around.

When you get right down to it, running around killing monsters and taking their stuff is what you *do* in WoW. By removing the “kill 30 X” quests Blizzard was basically saying “you don’t want to be doing any of that boring core gameplay, here, have this exciting mini-game instead”.

Yeah, I think Temi just took the words right out my mouth. Northrend is quite interesting the first time round because of the novelty but ultimately WoW quests have to be pretty much infinitely repeatable. And although “kill 20 [x]” quests aren’t world-changingly exciting they don’t at least require masses of concentration so you can cruise them, revelling in the simple pleasures of slaughter.

Here’s a confession. I’ve hardly spent any time in Burning Steppes because, well, because it’s not pretty. And I like to level in pretty zones. What’s striking about Oralius?

Why: Elly and I have a long history. She’s always been there to take care of me late at night after raids or long struggles in Alterac Valley…listening to my drunken war stories and harmless flirting, bringing me pint after pint to help dull the pain, and pulling my face out of the spilled Dwarven Stout on the table after I passed out and nearly drowned in it.

One particularly rough evening, I tried to cop a feel and she punched me in the ear. She later told Cheesi, who punched me in both knees. I’ve been good since.

Next time I’m on the other side of the fence I’ll send my Dorf (and Yorrick) over to the Pig and Whistle to introduce himself to Elly. I don’t know the Alliance areas very well so it’ll be nice to have a friendly face and, y’know, someone to plait my beard for me, and pet my pig.

I don’t mind that you’re often quite generic, in fact I kind of like it. I may not want to write poetry to you all but I’m very fond of you. Especially if the hat you are offering is better than the hat I’m currently wearing.

I’m glad that you have a lot of commenters. It always makes me smile when I read a new post from you in the morning and there are already 15-20 comments on it. I remember a time when there would only be one or two, and I think your blog deserves all the attention.

In Undercity, on the highest round
Lives Patrick Garrett, who is sadly bound
To sweep after bats to the end of time
Until some brave soul dares to brave the mine
In darkest badlands known as Uldaman
Slay the dark iron dwarves there, if they can
Then find the chest in the South Common Hall
Open it up with care, and take out all
The Family Treasure that lies within
Fly back to Undercity with a grin
And present it to our most hapless chap
Who will accept it with a cheer and clap
Then shall Patrick turn to those terrible bats
With a shout to scare all of UC’s rats
No more in his task will Patrick wemble
The treasure is his! TREMBLE, BATS, TREMBLE!

Tamarind is a holy priest (in World of Warcraft; in real life he is something different) which means - according to some of the folks he has PUGed with - he stands at the back in a sissy robe and does nothing.